Draw Nine
Fullscreen recommended.
Draw Nine puts you in the role of a magician whose powers depend on a pack of magic cards. These can help or harm, but the selection available to you is determined randomly at the start of the game. Since you cannot choose your cards, you must find the path through the world that makes the most of the powers at your disposal.
A game by Damon L. Wakes.
Artwork by Joe Wright.
Special thanks to Xalavier Nelson Jr., Felicity Drake, and everyone from IntroComp 2018, without whom this game would most likely not exist.
Comments
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A beautiful work. I like the simple structure that underlies this game, yet provides you with so much replayability. Knowing what will happen in the second playthrough onwards does not lessen the weight of the choice. In fact, the knowledge heightens it. Even if the large chunk of the journey is always the same, the choice you have made shifted the context enough. I think this game still holds up to four-five times of playing.
Wow, thanks! Four or five playthroughs is more than I figured it would really warrant - though if you want to see absolutely everything then that probably is about what it would take.
the ending felt a little underwhelming, and there were a couple typos, but I still really enjoy the concept and plan to play this again :)
If there's any chance you can remember what/where those typos were, I'd be hugely grateful! I'm keen to polish it up further if I can, but the nature of the game makes it hard to proofread exhaustively.
I will definitely let you know the next time I play :) It didn't impede my ability to play, although the font might be a little hard to read for certain people (I don't know this as a fact, but saying this because the 'w' in particular kept messing with my flow when reading).
Thanks! And yeah, the font's been mentioned before: I actually started out with something even more flowery and toned it down quite a bit, but possibly not quite as much as would have been ideal.
I played it twice. the first time I got rewarded, the second time I got killed.
I love this. Really atmospheric and well-written story with great replayability and interesting choices to make
I keep coming back to this for years now. I gotta ask how was this made?
I'm so glad it's made such an impression! This has absolutely made my day. :-)
The game was made with Twine, which I'm a huge fan of: it's really simple to pick up and use, but offers a lot of power and flexibility despite that. I've actually written a series of tutorials on it, and if you're curious how this particular game fits together you can actually import the HTML file back into Twine and explore its flowchart by following this one. (It might be a little hard to follow exactly how it works if you're unfamiliar with Twine, but the basic structure should be easy enough to grasp.)
A wonderful game! I only played once, this time, but intend to return.
Glad you liked it! There's plenty more to find on a second run through if you find time to come back. (I like to think it'll hold up to three or more plays, but at that point there'll be a fair bit of repetition.)
D: game gone
^^; Is it not showing up for you at all? I don't know what this means.
ah. sorry. i went to the download page but it says 'nothing is available for download yet.'
Aaaah - I think I see the confusion. It's a browser game, so there's no need to download anything in the first place. I'm guessing you may have got it in a bundle, and that the bundle links you straight to the empty downloads page. The game itself is right here: it should load within the page itself.
Very cool concept!
Oh I love this game. First time I played I got 3 of each was so fun! Same with my second run. Played a lot more times after that and I love the different dialogue depending on what cards were chosen!
Glad you liked it! I feel as though the game does work best when you've got roughly similar numbers of cards and have a bit of freedom to experiment with them (particularly at the beginning), but at the same time it's interesting to see what people make of it when they've just got tons of one to work with.
I believe I played this 10+ times in one sitting, as I'm a sucker for trying to read all the new dialogue. I still doubt I got to read everything. I like the fact that 'spider' is pretty """random""" based on other things that have happened. It always made me pause to check.
One note I saw was that the manticore dialogue for "spider" said "serpent" though. Just fyi. ;)
10/10, loved the game. Would have totally played something like this as a longer form game.
Thanks so much for playing - and for giving this such thought! I'm still planning to come back to it at some point (both Draw Nine itself, and hopefully the same basic idea for another game). It's tough to write because each step of the journey needs two locations and each of those locations needs four outcomes for the cards, but at the same time that does at least mean that the story will never branch uncontrollably.
I'm afraid I can't spot that mention of the serpent in the passage where you use the spider card against the manticore - there are two versions of the encounter so a fair bit to check through. Do you happen to remember if you saw it in the version where the manticore is defeated or the one where you just run away?
That would be super awesome, though I imagine that it would take a while. :)
The worldbuilding of this game is also very well developed for what it is. Very neat.
Here's a screenshot! Hope it helps!
Ah! That's weird - the version I have here says "summoned creature." I submitted it to Backslash Lit a while ago and it's possible that what I'm looking at has already been through one more round of proofreading for that. Thanks very much for the screenshot. I would have really struggled to work that out without it (and I'll be sure to make sure it's fixed on Itch whenever I update the game).
Nice! Glad to help!
That was a nice moment ! Thank you for creating this game.
Thank you for playing! It's so good to know you enjoyed it.
Thank you so much for sharing my work! I'm really glad you liked it. I can confirm there is currently no music, but I do have serious plans to add some: on my desk I've got the list of tracks, and in a spare tab I've got an audio library that I hope will do what I need it to. It's actually quite reassuring to hear that's a feature you'd like to see in the game!
Glad to be of assistance :D And truly thank you for making such an amazing experience. Can't wait to see what comes of any updates you have!
I loved it!
That was a neat choose your adventure! Unique take on the idea! Well done!
Aaaa, this was really great!! Really enjoyed the writing and the mechanism, very unique.
I loved every second of this story... I am tempted to go back and do it again but with different choices but I know that it will be heavily similar. I wish it was a bit longer but obviously, I only get 9 cards haha. (9/9 for every card I used)
You can actually get a fairly unique second run through by visiting locations that you didn't before. There will be broad similarities (especially at the beginning and end) but also a lot of material you can't possibly see on a single try. Third runs onwards are likely to start looking pretty familiar, though. Glad you liked the game!
Enjoyable! Strong, clear prose, and all the symbols here were used with purpose instead of as decoration. :) It's so hard to find hypertext fiction that isn't needlessly obtuse. The use of cards was also really clever! My only wish is that there were more choices--even just little flavor choices, especially as the sections get longer. For me, I like IF because I could pick up a short story anytime, but only an interactive short story on my computer. :)
Glad you liked it! I was quite keen while writing this to stick to a very rigid structure that offered the same sequence of choices on every run through, but having finished the thing I do wonder how this kind of system would work as part of a Fighting Fantasy style story that offered a wider range of options. It's something I may well come back to.
Would love to see it! I think you have your voice would fit very well with a gamebook.
Oh hello, everyone… I made a little YouTube video of a play through of the game if you are intrigued.
https://youtu.be/TcLfzD1HyoY
Thank you so much for doing this! I actually managed to catch it live on Twitch - it was great to see your choices in real time. Very well read, too!
Lovely, thanks :)
Fantastically written, and genuinely meaningful decisions!
This was really fun and thought-provoking in a solitary way. I loved that there was an element of unknown even as you chose which cards to use. I also love the ending. Wonderful!
I really enjoyed this! I also, like another commenter, assumed death was possible until I read that it wasn't. How many endings are there in total? My guess is 6, one for each final card and then the choice to use it or not.
I did try and give the impression that there was an element of danger to each choice, so I'm really glad it gives that impression. In terms of the actual number of endings, it's hard to say. The final card remaining (and the choice whether or not to use it) aren't the only factors that determine the outcome - the game silently tracks some other details throughout your journey - but some have more of an influence than others.
Could we get a .exe? I have problems running in-browser games.
I'm hoping to release standalone versions at some point - certainly a .apk for Android - but probably not until I've made some further changes. I've done that once before and it was difficult enough that I'd like to make sure the game itself is 100% polished before I try.
Then i'll have to be patient i guess :)
Thanks for understanding. This was pretty much the best work I could do at the point I initially released it, but thanks to the feedback here on Itch I feel as though I can refine it a step further now. I hope it'll be worth the wait!
I. Love. This. Game. I would gladly pay 5-10 dollars for this game to be double the length and have like 5 cards instead of 3.
That's so good to hear! I have thought about coming back to the format, quite possibly with a wider range of cards. The challenge would be still making the choices meaningful when you (usually) have a bunch of different options - I think it would probably have to up the stakes so that some choices resulted in death.
I actually thought that there was a chance of death when i started but there wasnt. My personal opinion? Dont add death add lots(i mean lots) of endings and if you mess up in spots that you think it would jus be easier to kill the player in you should take the hard route and turn it into a guaranteed pathway to a bad ending.
Wow this is a fun game. Started off with 6 snakes and still manged to be a good person.
Thanks for including this game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality! It was a fun play.
This was amazing! I got a really rough draw right off the bat - 5 snakes ahah, not the best impression! but i made it thru and had a good ending. the potential for replay is obvious!
Haha! Yeah, that's a tough one. In terms of the actual opportunities available, five snakes shouldn't really limit you any more than five steeds, but I feel as though the story outcome for using them in a non-ideal situation tends to be a little more negative. I expect it makes for some especially difficult choices on a first play through.
Wow, I loved this! The writing was absolutely wonderful and the story so compelling. Thank you for making this and including it in the equality bundle!
this was so lovely! the rng added a wonderful layer to this story, and the magic system was truly excellent. the writing was also very engaging - can't wait to replay this and see what other endings i get! :)
Glad you liked it! There are quite a lot of other options along the way - you can easily run through a second time without repeating any encounters besides the very beginning and very end, and seeing every possible ending will likely demand a certain level of familiarity with them (and a little bit of luck).
A very enjoyable game ! I loved the choices I made and their outcomes. The writing was beautiful and the story really interesting. I will have to play again to see other way this could have ended.
A true gem of interactive fiction.
This is lit. Love it! I'm going to play again and again :)
Hey that was great! The writing is a+, and I really like the premise of random cards with generic defend/attack/'flip a coin and hope for the best' effects. I got lucky on my first playthrough and was able to save the card I wanted for last; and on replays it was really fun to see how different sets of cards would affect the way I tackled obstacles (and sometimes which path I chose)!
I saw you address this in someone elses’s comment but I’m still gonna +1 that the font can be hard to parse at times, and a more dyslexia-friendly alternative would be nice to have. Other than that tho it’s a solid little game and I enjoyed it immensely!
You might want to check out the demo for The Witch's Yarn. It uses a similar control scheme for IF. It was released in 2006, I think.
Played through it many times
Very nice and enjoyable game! Thanks!
This was time well-spent! A very enjoyable read, and I'm glad RNG decided to be nice to me for once lol
Looking forward to going through it once more on a later date, if only just to see one of the other possible outcomes.
This was a small joy; very well-written. Will be eager to revisit again.
really fun! Thanks!
Really good, loved this, felt good about the path I took! Interesting how the cards played out in different contexts, that was creative.